Jarvan IV

By lolCris

12/2/2013 2:21:05 AM

1

This build guide for Jarvan is for Top Lane. Jarvan IV is a heavy damage, evasive champion with a lot of utility. He can be played as a Bruiser AD bot, Jungler, and even a Top Lane Bruiser. He has a lot of versatility which is what makes him a formidable foe.

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I disagree with not building trinity force on Jarvan. Usually in a fight, you would want to unload your combo on an enemy carry, and since you will be able to get off three to five procs in the span of five-ish seconds, it ups your damage considerably. I myself am a big fan of the boots pots -> double dorans -> brutalizer -> trinity force route, since your killing potential is nigh unmatched. You also get a reasonable amount of bonus mana from Sheen and you can still proc Phage with a bit of luck (if you even have to, after Golden Aegis).

I think Morde should be added to his counters in top lane. His unbelievable pushing and sustain really make it hard to farm. Morde can zone Jarvan pretty hard because of the farm advantage as well. I typically have to max W and build MR quickly, which really hurts his damage output. Even though with smart play, Jarvan can still dominate mid-game and have a presence in late-game. Morde just wins the lane.

1) His tagline is a Heavy damage, evasive champ with utility. But the entire guide talks about his weak damage relative to most bruisers.

2) Why max dragon strike first instead of the Flag? The Dragon Strike increases in mana cost as you rank it up, and all you get is +45 damage per rank and a bit of extra armor reduction which doesn't mean much in laning anyways. You rarely can follow it up with other physical attacks anyways due to mana pool and your armor penetration runes will heavily reduce their armor too.

The flag on the other hand has a fixed mana cost, is easier to hit with in my opinion, less likely to push the lane, and has the stronger passive/active effects. It too gets +45 damage per rank, but also adds +3 armor/attack speed per rank passive and double that when active. I'd think that would be a better choice. Sure its cooldown is longer but his mana supply can't really keep up with dragon strike spam anyways right?

Dragonstrike provides a wide range of advantages in comparison to Flag. The probably most important one is that Dragonstrike deals Physical damage, which is affected by armor-penetration. Furthermore does it scale with attack-damage, therefore increasing the damage it deals by adding items Jarvan IV normally build as shown in the guide.

The armor reduction does have an important impact, for armor reduction stacks with armor penetration and other than % armor penetration doesn't suffer from reduced effectivity by flat armor penetration or armor reduction. Physical damage is Jarvan's primary type of damage. His innate deals bonus physical damage, his auto attacks of course deal physical damage and last but not least his ultimate deals physical damage.

Also if you consider Dragonstrike's scaling with Jarvan's items it actually is a very mana-efficient way to harass your enemy and/or farm. The lower CD amplifies this aspect.

Increased AS and armor doesn't benefit Jarvan too much in lane, for attacking the enemy in melee in laning phase actually puts him into a risky spot for he'll be attacked by minions, and the increased armor scales better with more HP. The damage it deals is increased by AP and magic penetration, which Jarvan IV won't build. This it's less effective at harassing but a great tool for escapes in combination with Dragonstrike.

That's what I'd see as enough reasons to chose Dragonstrike above Demacian Standart.

Scaling on Q isn't a good reason to level it up since the Ad ratio stays the same either way. It's more about if you're playing passive or aggressive as you can hit targets with Q for armor reduc to make them more susceptible to ganks, or level E to make yourself tankier and give more attack speed.

Seems to make more sense to level E if you're farming in jungle, and Q if you're laning. The Attack Speed buff is very useful in the jungle compared to the armor reduc on his Q (not sure if it stacks with armor penetration very well). E also makes him tankier in the jungle where he can't avoid taking hits from the minions. On the flip side, in lane you want to be putting the opponent in a position that increases his susceptibility to ganks, so leveling something that does large amounts of damage and reduces their armor makes sense. Just my view on it. It seems entirely plausible to max Q in jungle if you don't have a very high DPS laner and it'd make sense to max E if you just want to farm all day and have mana issues in lane.

I wouldn't see the scaling as a necessary bad reason to actually level up a spell. Most of the time you'll actually get items like Phage, Wriggle's Lantern,Atma's Impaler and in some rare cases even BT as core items on Jarvan IV. These items benefit his auto attacks, sure, but they also have an impact on Jarvan's single best poke spell. If you level up Dragonstrike, take into consideration that the passive armor reduction will become increasingly efficient as the game goes on AND add, that the spell benefits on your natural item build one will soon realize, that the number of benefits it offers are by far superior to leveling up Demacian Standart, which may benefit by a certain degree of AD as well, but that's only due to the IAS, which will only pay off if you attack your enemy constantly while the Demacian Standart is on the ground.

But yeah, I definately agree that in most cases Demacian Standart is the better choice for the jungle, for you'll constantly attack the enemy and the armor reduction won't be as powerful as in lane.

Jarvan is really underated as both top lane and jungle, He has insanely strong ganks if you blindspot gank them with his flag toss. especially if the lane you're ganking has their own form of cc aswell, get them to cc the target first for a free knockup.

Also his ult will ensure a free kill if the enemy has their flash or dash down. Basically if the enemy doesnt take flash against a jarvan its a free kill on whoever didnt take it. Support takes exhaust +heal = free kill bot lane if given the chance = free dragon.

His Q also shreds armor and has a shorter cooldown. It scales with his bonus attack damage, whereas the Toss' ratio is based on ability power. Yes, the flag has a superior maximum range and yes, throwing down the flag improves his Armor and ASP, but if you're simply comparing the two skills in terms of their ability to poke, Q is a better option. It costs less-or-equal mana through rank 3 and if you're not following up either skill with autoattacks, the ASP from the flag is wasted where the armor shred may enable a couple extra points of damage from minions.

That's looking at the skills purely form a poke standpoint. The flag is still an excellent ability and worth putting more points in earlier on depending on the situation. If you're not solotop your partner will also benefit from the flag's aura, potentially making it a superior pick. If you're solotop against a hard AD champ, you may want more points in his E to compensate for J4's terrible base Armor. If you aren't starting with an item that gives you a little extra AD (as a Wriggle's and Phage do), their ratios are irrelevant. As with everything, it's situational; this guide strictly addresses solotop Jarvan and is correct in how you generally want to go about it, in my opinion.

I main Jarvan for both Ranked and Normals. I play his exclusively and have a 91% win rate with him over a total of about 40 game with him.

To answer you questions from my standpoint:

1) Preference. I have friends who get a Cloth Armor and 5 pots against top, giving them well over 85 armor at level 1 (with his Standard). I personally start with aFaerie Charm and build it into a Philo stone. It gives the mana regen so you can spam your Standard more often for the range damage (poke) and for it's buffs. I then work a Heart of Gold and then build my boots, which are obviously situational. I usually get a kill, most of the time FB, before I even buy my boots because he's that mobile early game.

2) Mana issues get taken care of with the afore mention items. Most of the time you have at least 1/2 a bar of mana to use at all times. If I'm going against a champ that counters hard, I'll buy mana pots just so I can spam my Standard more often.

3) Much worse. If you're going to play DPS, then get a Bloodrazor, if you're going to play tanky, get Frozen Mallet. It's a guaranteed slow (If you don't have Red Buff), it gives a decent amount of hp, and gives the bonus damage.

4) Yes and no. You'll find that most of your damage can come from your E + Q combo, let alone those skills by themselves. He may block your auto-attack, but he's not going to block the knock up > slow > constant auto-attacks. Pantheon simpy doesn't have the same sustain that Jarvan has, especially if you build him right, plus his buffs from his Standard. One or two ganks should put you far beyond him.

1) Bloodrazor's bonus damage does better with Magpen. J4 will never have Magpen.

2) J4's kit doesn't benefit from the ASP. His passive is time-based, not per-attack, and it does physical damage, thus benefitting more from Armpen.

3) J4's AD ratios are A-OK. You'll get more out of his kit from items with better flat AD.

That said, Bloodrazor is a fantastic item and is definitely still worth considering, particularly as a situational deal. However, if you're intent on building more damage on him, you'd benefit more by looking elsewhere.

As for crematedez's Q3, I agree 100% with Cryses980's answer: Trinity Force is a much worse item on J4 than a Frozen Mallet. The way his kit chains together and given his average cooldowns, you won't be getting a darn thing from the Sheen proc. While TF's smorgasbord of other stats work just fine on J4, your role in team fighting demands the consistent slow that a Frozen Mallet provides -- along with the superior survivability.

1) Bloodrazor's bonus damage does better with Magpen. J4 will never have Magpen.

2) J4's kit doesn't benefit from the ASP. His passive is time-based, not per-attack, and it does physical damage, thus benefitting more from Armpen.

3) J4's AD ratios are A-OK. You'll get more out of his kit from items with better flat AD.

That said, Bloodrazor is a fantastic item and is definitely still worth considering, particularly as a situational deal. However, if you're intent on building more damage on him, you'd benefit more by looking elsewhere.

As for crematedez's Q3, I agree 100% with Cryses980's answer: Trinity Force is a much worse item on J4 than a Frozen Mallet. The way his kit chains together and given his average cooldowns, you won't be getting a darn thing from the Sheen proc. While TF's smorgasbord of other stats work just fine on J4, your role in team fighting demands the consistent slow that a Frozen Mallet provides -- along with the superior survivability.

I disagree with not building trinity force on Jarvan. Usually in a fight, you would want to unload your combo on an enemy carry, and since you will be able to get off three to five procs in the span of five-ish seconds, it ups your damage considerably. I myself am a big fan of the boots pots -> double dorans -> brutalizer -> trinity force route, since your killing potential is nigh unmatched. You also get a reasonable amount of bonus mana from Sheen and you can still proc Phage with a bit of luck (if you even have to, after Golden Aegis).